LOS ANGELES — Even before Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had time to really process his team’s historic 6-5, 18-inning World Series Game 3 win over the Toronto Blue Jays, his mind was already starting to spin to a forward-looking reality.
“It’s one of the greatest World Series games of all time. Emotional. I’m spent emotionally,” Roberts said. “We’ve got a ballgame later tonight, which is crazy.”
It is crazy. Even crazier is that Monday’s Game 3 rendered Game 3 of the 2018 World Series as a no-longer-a-once-in-lifetime-event. Because now there have been two 18-inning Fall Classic games at Dodger Stadium, both won by the home team on a game-ending home run. And in both instances, the beleaguered teams had to turn around and play a pivotal Game 4 later the same day.
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There were about 12 storylines that could dominate a retelling of what we saw Monday, but as we think ahead to what’s on tap in Tuesday’s Game 4, the same name that dominated the action in Game 3 springs to mind: Shohei Ohtani.
We’re always noting the things that Ohtani does that no one has done before, and he added another to his list Monday night. No one had reached base more than six times in a postseason game until he did it nine times against Toronto. The easiest part of his night was his two home runs, resulting in leisurely jogs around the bases, but he also doubled twice. Then there were his five walks, which meant a whole lot of time spent on the basepaths.
If we were talking about Ohtani, the DH, we wouldn’t worry about what that means for the next game, but he in fact is slated to start on the mound in Game 4. The night before a big postseason start, pitchers are usually tasked with maximizing rest. Ohtani played 18 innings.
“He’s spent,” Roberts said. “He was on base eight, nine times tonight, running the bases. But he’s taking the mound tomorrow. He’ll be ready.”
The challenge for Roberts is many-fold. There is concern that the Monday marathon could impact Ohtani’s ability to work deep into the game Tuesday, but the Dodgers very much need him to do so, because both teams had to use every available reliever to circumnavigate Game 3, some with larger-than-usual workloads.
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Will Klein, the newest unsung World Series folk hero who follows in a proud lineage of such emergent October heroes as Howard Ehmke and Brian Doyle, threw 72 pitches, exactly twice as many as he threw in any big league outing this season. He’s probably down, but the other relievers will likely have to suck it up.
That includes Clayton Kershaw, who faced and retired one batter to escape a bases-loaded jam in extra innings but warmed up for three innings before he got into the contest. For everyone who played, it was like “Survivor.”
“You don’t ever plan on playing 18 innings,” Roberts said. “You just kind of ask more from the player.”
After the 18-inning win over Boston in the 2018 World Series, Roberts faced a similar spot with the glaring exception that his starter the next night — Rich Hill — had not run the bases nine times the night before. Hill worked into the seventh inning, given L.A. desperately needed length. But Roberts called on six relievers from his gassed bullpen after Hill departed — and all six of them allowed at least one run.
Of course, everything the Dodgers dealt with on Monday, so did the Blue Jays. Manager John Schneider used his entire bullpen, as did Roberts. The Blue Jays version of Klein was Eric Lauer, who threw 4 ⅔ innings of scoreless relief and threw 68 pitches. Perhaps more crucial to Game 4: closer Jeff Hoffman worked two innings and threw 33 pitches.
Both managers also know there won’t be an off-day until Thursday — if the series is still going after Wednesday’s Game 5. The end of the season is near, and soon a champion will be crowned. But the complications arising from Monday’s classic make all of that seen still so far away.
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“Longest game in World Series history,” Schneider said. “They were in the right mindset and the right head space the entire time. It sucks that it’s late right now, but we’ve got to come back and do it again tomorrow.”
One position worth noting is catcher. Toronto’s Alejandro Kirk caught 11 innings and hit a three-run homer, but was removed for a pinch runner after drawing a 12th-inning walk. He was at least spared the last third of the game, giving him a head start in recovering for Tuesday.
That’s not a luxury that Dodgers catcher Will Smith had. In a performance that may have slipped under the radar with so much else going on, Smith caught the entire game — something neither starting catcher did in the 18-inning affair in 2018 — and in doing so, he handled all 10 pitchers the Dodgers used.
“I can’t say enough about that,” said Emmett Sheehan, who put up 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief. “The grit to stay back there, and he got hit in the hand in like the 17th. It was amazing to watch. He never took a pitch off. That’s who he is.”
Toronto has some position-player questions beyond their catcher though. Another Blue Jay removed for a pinch runner was Bo Bichette, who departed in the seventh inning and thus played fewer than the player who replaced him, Isiah Kiner-Falefa. But with Bichette still not at full strength after returning from a knee injury, he too is getting a head start in recovering.
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For now, we can’t say that about George Springer, who left in the seventh with right side discomfort and later was sent for an MRI. His possible absence would be the one carryover from the long game that can’t be overcome with moxie.
The Dodgers have four players on their roster who played in that 2018 game against Boston — Kershaw, Max Muncy, Kike Hernandez and Mookie Betts, who was with the Red Sox — but that experience is unlikely going to unlock any magic formula for bouncing back after such a contest. If you’re wiped out, you’re wiped out.
“It was just a whirlwind,” Muncy said. “You felt like you didn’t really get any sleep (in 2018). But since it’s the World Series, you’re going to find a way to get going.”
The questions about what impact Game 3 will have on Game 4, and beyond, will commence with Ohtani’s first pitch and linger through the game. If Game 3 was a test of survival, Game 4 might be more of a test of wills.
“The Dodgers didn’t win the World Series today,” Schneider said. “They won a game.”
